The importance of interoperability between database and spreadsheet is well recognized by the software industry. Most systems solve this problem by providing sophisticate methods to transfer data and operations between databases and spreadsheets. That is not the approach being taken by this invention. A number of patents that address this problem have been granted. Relevant prior patents include:
Microsoft: Method for creating an embedded database in a spreadsheet, U.S. Pat. No. 7,155,665
IBM: Transforming a portion of a database into a custom spreadsheet, U.S. Pat. No. 6,988,242
Oracle: Performing spreadsheet-like calculations in a database system, U.S. Pat. No. 6,985,895
However, the first two patents do not provide a uniform concept of spreadsheet and database. Namely, DBMS (Database Management Systems) and spreadsheet are treated as two different applications. The Microsoft and IBM patent attempts to make a spreadsheet from information in a database so that the results can be used as a spreadsheet using their spreadsheet applications. The Oracle patent attempts to enhance their SQL with some spreadsheet like constructs. The result is a non-standard SQL query language, which can only be used with Oracle products by users with technical skill.
Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo are some of the most innovative software inventions in recent years. However, all existing search engines are focusing on finding documents on the Internet. There is a need for a search engine that can be used to find contents of databases and spreadsheets as wells as documents and media images in various formats. One patent that address some aspects of this problem is:
Google: Information extraction from a database, U.S. Pat. No. 6,678,681
However, the subject of the Google patent is in the extraction of information from a database to build the search index. The subject of Search/Computing is in the search, access, and information processing methodology. These two inventions potentially can greatly compliment each other.
Relational database management systems and spreadsheet are both very remarkable inventions. But they were invented at different times and for different purpose, therefore the application user interfaces of these two systems are not compatible. Both products require extensive trainings before they can be used effectively. Furthermore, the user interfaces of different DBMS's are very much product specific. There is no easy way to combine information from different databases and spreadsheets into a single view. There is a need to integrate the results of the search into a single view from which both spreadsheet and database functions can be performed.
Even though the Internet has been around since the 1970's, explosive use of the Internet has not occurred until the Internet browser was invented. The power of the Internet browser user interface is not limited to browsing and searching of documents. It is, in fact, a general-purpose application user interface that can be used to implement different applications. A number of patents for using Internet browser to access and view contents of databases were granted. These include:
IBM: Method and system for utilizing a database as a service, U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,420
Sybase: Development system providing HTML database control object U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,928
Inshift: Browser-based database-access engine apparatus and method, U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,041
These three patents provide some simple methods to access information in a database. None of them addresses the problems of search and access of multiple databases on the Internet and to perform computations with the integrated results of the search and access. While the usefulness of all these capabilities described in the prior art is well recognized, no existing invention has provided a solution that addresses all these problems in one system. Existing methods that address some aspects of these problems are significantly different from the approach being taken by this invention.